On this CD and DVD combination, Pierre-André Arcand presents an audio disc of his rugged little electroacoustic pieces to which we can imagine a world of images. The video CD that accompanies (playable in DVD players) is a set of wholly different works to which images are attached. These images tend to be basic, blurry, patterned and repetitive. What these sounds need, for the experimental and challenging content is surreal, is unsettling visions like something Brothers Quay would conceive of to match these mechanical rhythms and nonmusical sounds. When someone takes the MTV flash and drama of a 2-minute video film with the jarring, freeing exercise of sonic mutation like this, then we will see into a world of new art.

The name of Pierre-André Arcand is to me an old one, one from the time I was serving beer at an arts-centre. Arcand participated in one exhibition with a piece by telephone. Over the years I have been pleasentely surprised by his work, which is really something that crosses the territory of art and music, but also crosses soundpoetry and mechanical music. Much of his works deals with loops, repeating sounds. Usually, per piece, he has a bunch of the same loops running back and forth, but through some sort of system, these loops are in constant, but subtle decay.

Maybe nowadays this decay comes from a self-built Max/msp patch; at least the cover indicates such a thing. On the video CD that comes with this package we see how this works out visually. Some of these films are short, consisting of one line, and last only a couple of seconds. Others multiply the image and a genius play arises of the various mutations of the image. The music here seems new, and this is not the visual component of the audio CD.

Over the years Arcand has built a small but strong oeuvre of similar works, which sounds unlike anything else in the field of sound poetry — at least to my knowledge. Atlas Epileptic is the strongest work to date and perhaps also the most complete one, for it’s combination of audio and video.

Attivissima, la scena canadese testimoniata dalla Ambiances Magnetiques, ci presenta il compositore e chitarrista Tim Brady in un ambizioso lavoro per chitarra elettrica, campionatore e orchestra. Più che un concerto, ci spiega nel libretto, l’attitudine è quella sinfonica, con le varie parti a integrarsi e l’elettronica a fare da volano – sia nel filtraggio degli strumenti acustici, sia nell’uso del campionatore come espansione dell’aspetto chitarristico. Si toccano diverse atmosfere – alcune felicemente allucinatorie, altre leggermente didascaliche–e il lavoro è di ottimo livello. Bello anche il più breve Frame 1.(7+)

Di impronta chiaramente jazzistica è invece Jardin D’Exil dell’Ensemble En Pièces guidato dal sassofonista Philippe Lauzier e dal pianista Alexandre Grogg e splendidamente a suo agio sul filo dell’equilibrio tra struttura e libertà, avvicinandosi a molti spunti del jazz europeo più avanzato.(7)

Doppio – cd audio + cd video–è Atlas Epileptic dell’artista multiforme Pierre-André Arcand, poeta visuale, dj, performer. Il titolo è già fantastico. L’uso di vari espedienti, tra cui il software Macchina Ricordi, la manipolazione di campionamenti di precedenti lavori, il trattamento della voce, rende il disco [e il suo fratello “visuale”] un interessantissimo susseguirsi di esperienze. (8)

This is certainly not a typical Ambiances Magnétiques release, but definitely a typical one for sound/video artist Pierre-André Arcand, whose previous efforts came out on the Quebec City-based imprint OhmEditions. Atlas Epileptic picks where Transfuge + Transfuge hadleft, down to reproducing the twin set format of audio CD + video CD. Where Transfuge was a transitional work, Atlas Epileptic is (sound-wise) much more assured and convincing. Arcand is using the same (a)technological toys, from his atavistic sounding book and ashtray to his “macchina ricordi” (a self-programmed piece of Max/MSP software). Once again the music evolves through a process of transformative accretionary loops, but this time around the sound palette is significantly more varied and the music more dynamicand responsive. Transfuge was a rather cold disc, while Atlas Epileptic displays a certain warmth, even though the listener still feels trapped inside an enormous machine built for the sole purpose offunctioning. Arcand’s heavily treated voice is still an important soundsource and is responsible for any Industrial Coil, Nurse with Wound, Einsturzende Neubauten references the press has made. But Arcand’s soundworld is much more abstract, self-contained and enigmatic than even the more experimental disciples of that genre. The audio CD presents nine pieces (total duration: 69 minutes). The 10-minute title track and the 16-minute Un Casino à la Radio are the highlights and represent some of theartist’s finest works. The video CD (viewable as a CD-Rom or DVD) contains 11 pieces for a total duration of 49 minutes. The music component, while not being exactly the same as what is found on disc 1, uses the same soundelements and at times consists of edits or reworkings of the same tracks.Arcand’s video art is much more limited than his music. His image bank is restricted to only a few themes (kaleidoscopes, objects with facial features, penises, and computer screens). His fondness for making videocaptures of live computer screens sketches an interesting paradox: the analog capture of digital displays as if they were paintings. But otherwise his experimental videos are of limited appeal. Their repetitiveness tends to over shadow the fact that the music is actually much more varied. Taken in small doses (like Le Muezzin de Mayabunder or Moultécrans, these videos set the music in different, stimulating contexts. In larger helpings Dividing by Zero is Good, L’Érotique du Désert, they become a “viewing experience” one is not keen on repeating.

Tout ne serait que boucles évolutives, semble suggérer l’artiste sonore Pierre-André Arcand. C’est pour mieux exploiter cette perspective qu’il a construit la Macchina Ricordi, petit logiciel offert à qui le veut sur le Web et qui permet de faire vivre ses propres boucles à partir de sons divers. Non seulement Arcand a-t-il rassemblé une série d’expérimentations parentes dans cet Atlas, mais on retrouve sur le second disque une exploration visuelle à partir de ces sons et procédés récursifs. Les amateurs de manipulation bruitiste trouveront là un radicalisme digne de Nurse With Wound ou de Mount Vernon Astral Temple, de même que cette faculté de faire vivre les éructations de machines.

Just like his loops of sound and light, Pierre-André Arcand is an artist in a state of perpetual evolution. A renegade of sound poetry, over the last years he has developed installations of sound and visual permutations. Digital mechanics? Electronic acoustics? For {nbio:arcand_pi}, everything happens by mutation! His latest hybrid project, Atlas Epileptic, presents a selection of audio works and a second section of audiovisual compositions. Pierre-André Arcand will officially launch his new album on September 25, 2004, during his performance at Désert, an multimedia event held at Montréal’s des Carrieres incinerator.